by Rex Stout
Turning, I said, “Huh.”
I didn’t really say it, it just came out. And I walked out.
Also I walked the ten blocks down to Thirty-fifth Street and across town to the old brownstone. As I mounted the stoop it was half past four and Wolfe would be up in the plant rooms, and I hung up my coat and went to the office, sat, and looked at the list. He had written not only the names, but also what they did. If my time hadn’t been up, he might have included ages and addresses. I tossed it on the desk and sat and looked at the picture. It was now an entirely new ballgame. By tossing Richard Nixon into that dinner party he had put a completely new face on it. Knowing Wolfe as I did, that was obvious. It was so obvious that it took me only ten minutes to decide what to do first, and I did it. I got at the phone and dialed a number.
It took more than half an hour to get all three of them. Actually I only got Fred; for Saul and Orrie I had to leave urgent messages. Then I pulled the typewriter around and made five copies of the list of names. I don’t have to type it here for you because I already have. Then I typed the conversation with Igoe, verbatim, one carbon. I usually don’t read things over, but I did that, and was on the second page when the elevator rattled coming down and clanked at the bottom, and Wolfe came.
He went to his desk and sat and said, “You’re back.”
He rarely says things that are obvious, but he says that fairly often because it’s a miracle that I’m not limping or bleeding after spending hours out in the concrete jungle.
“Yes, sir. I’ll try to cover it all before dinner. I saw Felix and Lon Cohen and Miss Rowan and Felix again and one of the guests at that dinner named Benjamin Igoe, an electronics engineer with NATELEC, Bassett’s company, and you’ll want it all, but I prefer to give you the last one first. Igoe. I’ve typed my talk with him for the record.”
I swiveled to get it from my desk, swiveled again, and got up and handed it to him.
Three pages. He read the last page twice, looked at me with his eyes half shut and said, “By God.”
I stared at him. I may have gaped. He never says by god, and he said it with a capital G. So I didn’t say anything.
He did. “Was he gibbering? Was it flummery?”
“No, sir. It was straight.”
“He gave you their names.”
“Right.”
It was in my hand, the one he had written, not a typed copy, and I passed it to him. He read it twice too. He put it down on his desk and then picked it up for another look. “I am not easily overwhelmed,” he said. “If I could have them here now, all of them, I would pretermit dinner. I have occasionally asked you to bring people when I knew no one else could, but this-these six-not even you.”
“I agree. So before I typed that conversation I did something. I used the telephone. More than once. And got results. You may have one guess.”
He looked at me, straight, then closed his eyes. In about a minute, maybe a little more, he opened them and asked, “When will they come?”
“Nine o’clock. Fred sure, and Saul and Orrie probable. As you know, they like doing errands for you.”
“Satisfactory,” he said. “I’ll taste my dinner. I haven’t tasted food for two days.”
I forget who once called them the Three Musketeers. Saul was in the red leather chair, and Fred and Orrie were in the two yellow ones I had moved up to face Wolfe’s desk. Saul had brandy, Orrie had vodka and tonic, Fred had bourbon, I had milk, and Wolfe had beer.
Saul Panzer was two inches shorter, much less presentable with his big ears and unpressed pants, and in some ways smarter than me. Fred Durkin was one inch shorter, two inches broader, heavier-bearded, and in some ways a little more gullible. Orrie Gather was half an inch taller, a lot handsomer, and a little vainer. He was still sure he should have my job and thought it was conceivable that someday he would. He also thought he was twice as attractive to all women under forty, and I guess he was. He could say let’s look at the record.
I had been doing most of the talking for more than an hour, and their notebooks were more than half full. I had given them the crop, saving nothing, with a little help from Wolfe in spots, but of course omitting irrelevant items such as the luncheon menu at Lily Rowan’s. That had also been skipped when reporting to Wolfe before dinner. His real opinion of her wasn’t anything near as low as he liked to pretend it was, but he didn’t need another minus for her.
I took a sip of milk and said, “Now questions, I suppose.”
“No,” Wolfe said. His eyes moved left to right and back, to take them in. “I must first tell you the situation. Archie doesn’t need to be told; he was aware of it before I was. What Mr. Igoe told him. He sees me every day, and hears me. He knew that for the first time in my life I had an itch that could not be relieved-that I hankered for something I couldn’t get. He knew that I would have given all of my orchids-well, most of them-to have an effective hand in the disclosure of the malfeasance of Richard Nixon. I once dictated to him a letter offering my services to Mr. Jaworski, and he typed it, but it wasn’t sent. I tore it up.”
He picked up the bottle, decided not to pour, and put it down. “Well. Mr. Nixon is now out, no longer in command of our ship of state, no longer the voice of authority to us and of America to the world, but the record is by no means complete. History will dig at it for a century. It is now possible that I may be able to make a contribution. You heard what Mr. Igoe told Archie. Was he merely babbling, Archie?”
“No, sir. It was square.”
“So I accept it and I expect you to. I trust Archie’s eyes and ears, and I think you do. I am assuming that there was some connection between the name on that slip of paper, if it was a name, and the web of events and circumstances that is called Watergate; and further, that it resulted in the death by violence of Harvey Bassett and Pierre Ducos. Of Pierre, in this house. That’s what I expect to establish, with your help. I have no client, so there will be no fee. Your usual rates will be paid, and of course expenses. I instruct you not to stint. It’s nearing the end of a good year for me, even this year of a delirious economy, and it won’t pinch me.”
He sat straighter and palmed the chair arms. “Now. You have always trusted my judgment and followed instructions without question. Now you can’t. I don’t. On this I can’t be sure my intellect will ignore the goad of my emotions. It may already have been gulled. The assumptions I have made-are they witless? I have asked Archie. Saul?”
“For a try, no.”
“Fred?”
“No, sir.”
“Orrie?”
“I agree with Saul. Good enough to work on.”
Wolfe nodded. “I’m not convinced, but in any case I am going to get the man who killed Pierre-and might have killed Archie. But don’t trust me blindly. If you doubt the soundness of my conclusions or instructions, say so. I would like to come out of this with my self-esteem intact, and so would you.”
He leaned back. “To the job. If one of those six men is the culprit, he was with Bassett in an automobile last Friday night, and he had access to Pierre’s coat Monday, day before yesterday, no matter what his motive was. To that the soundness of my assumptions is immaterial, and my emotions are not involved. Archie has given you lists of their names and has told you that five of them are in the Manhattan telephone directory. One of the lawyers, Mr. Ackerman, is in the Washington directory. Saul, you will start with the other lawyer, Mr. Judd. What is he? Where was he? Of course you won’t ask him. If he learns you are inquiring about him, he may ask you, and if you need to consult with Archie, he will be here. Better Archie than me; on this I am suspect. As I said.”
“Yes, sir. A question?”
“Yes?”
“You have told us not to follow your instructions without question. Lucile Ducos, Pierre’s daughter. What Igoe said and the names he gave may have made you forget her.”
He looked at me. “You think he may have shown her the slip of paper?”
“May have, certainly.”
“Could I open her up?”
“Possibly. If anybody could. I doubt it.”
Back to Wolfe. “The name may not be one of those six men. It may have no connection with Watergate or Nixon. That may be why you forgot her. I could give it a try. Archie looks like a male chauvinist, and I don’t.”
Wolfe’s lips were tight. He had asked for it, but even so it was hard to take. I am supposed to badger him, that’s one of the forty-four things I get paid for, but not them, not even Saul.
Til discuss it with Archie,” Wolfe said. “In asking about Mr. Judd, if you reveal that I sent you, so much the better. He may resent it and want to tell me so. Fred, you will start with Mr. Vilar. Since he deals with what is euphemistically called security, you will be familiar with those around him. My comments to Saul apply to you. Questions?”
“No, sir. Archie will be here?”
“Yes. He will see Mr. Igoe again and bring him if possible, but that will have to wait. At least he will be here tomorrow. Orrie, I believe you are known at Rusterman’s.”
“Well…”
Orrie let it hang five seconds. “I have been there, sure. With my wife. Not often; I can’t afford it.”
“You were there two years ago, when money was taken from one of the men’s lockers and Felix asked me to investigate. I sent you.”
“Oh, that, sure.”
“So you have seen that room, and many of the men have seen you. Pierre’s coat could have been anywhere that he was that day or evening, but that room is the most likely. Was a stranger seen there that evening? Go and find out. Archie will tell Felix to expect you. Don’t go until eleven o’clock, and interfere with the routine as little as possible. Have in mind another possibility, that the bomb was put in the coat by one of them. Archie and I think it unlikely, but it isn’t excluded. You will not mention the slip of paper; you know what we promised Philip. Questions?”
Orrie shook his head. “About that, no. That’s simple. And Archie will be here. But I’d like to say-about the ante. Fred has a family and needs it, but my wife has a good job with good pay, and we won’t starve for a couple of weeks. Also I’ve got some feelings about Nixon too. If you pay the expenses, I’d like to donate my time.”
“No.”
Wolfe clipped it. “This is my affair. When Archie said it’s all in the family, he meant merely that I have no client. No.”
“I live here,” I said. “I took him up to that room. It’s a family affair.”
Inside I was grinning. Orrie was so damn obvious. He thought my taking in a man with a bomb was a black mark for me, and offering to donate his time showed that he was fully worthy to step in when I stepped out. I’m not saying he was dumb. He wasn’t.
Fred said, “Hell, I wouldn’t starve either. I’ve got two families. I don’t live here like Archie, but I like to think this is my professional family.”
Saul said, “So do I. I raise. I’ll pay expenses-mine.”
Wolfe said, “Pfui. It’s my affair. Archie, five hundred to each of them. There may be occasion to buy some facts. Record it as usual; it may be deductible, at least some of it.”
I went and opened the safe, got the reserve cash box, and made three piles-ten twenties, twenty tens, and twenty fives, all used bills. When I finished, the members of the family were on their feet, including Wolfe. He had shaken hands with them when they arrived, but they didn’t offer now because they knew he didn’t like it. They took the bills and went to the hall for their coats.
When I returned to the office after letting them out and sliding the bolt, Wolfe had the list of names and the conversation with Igoe in his hand. Taking them up to bed with him. “Still half an hour to midnight,” he said. “I’ll sleep, and so will you. Good night.”
I returned it and started collecting glasses and bottles.
At a quarter past ten Thursday morning I left the South Room and closed the door, which was no longer honored with the seal of the NYPD. Ralph Kerner, of Town House Services Incorporated, closed his imitation-leather-bound book and said, “I’ll try to get the estimate to you by Monday. Tell Mr. Wolfe to expect the worst. That’s all we get nowadays, the worst, from all directions.”
“Yeah, we expect it and we get it. Isn’t there a discount for a room where a man has just been murdered?”
He laughed. Always laugh at a customer’s joke, even a bum one. “There certainly ought to be. tell Mr. Ohrbach. So you took him up and left him.”
He laughed. “Good thing you left.”
“It sure was. I may be dumb, but not that dumb.”
Following him down the two flights, I would have liked to plant a foot on his fanny and push but controlled it.
The office chores were done, but I had been interrupted on a job of research-a phone call to Nathaniel Parker to ask for a report on the lawyers, Judd and Ackerman, one to our bank for a report on Hahn, the banker, and one to Lon Cohen about Roman Vilar, security, and Ernest Urquhart, lobbyist. I had enough on Igoe unless there were developments. Huh. Also one of the bottom shelves had seven directories, not counting the telephone books for the five boroughs and Westchester and Washington, and I had the Directory of Directors open at N to see if any of them were on the NATELEC list when Wolfe came down.
Three days’ mail was on his desk, and he went at it. First, as usual, a quick once-through, dropping about half in the wastebasket. Of course I had chucked most of the circulars and other junk. He answers nearly all real letters, especially handwritten ones, because, he once told me, it is a mandate of civility. Also, I said, all he had to do was talk to me and he loved to talk, and he nodded and said that when he had to write them by hand he hadn’t answered any. I said then he wasn’t civilized, and that started him off on one of his hairsplitting speeches. We answered about twenty letters, three or four from orchid collectors and buffs as usual, with a few interruptions, phone calls from Parker and Lon Cohen and Fred Durkin. When I swiveled to my desk I was surprised to see him go to the shelves for a book-Fitzgerald’s translation of the lliad. In the mail there had been an inscribed copy of Herblock’s new book. Special Report, with about a thousand cartoons of Nixon, but apparently he no longer needed to read or look at pictures about it because he was working on it. So he sat and read about a phony horse instead of a phony statesman.
He tasted his lunch all right. First marrow dumplings, and then sweetbreads poached in white wine, dipped in crumbs and eggs, sauteed, and doused with almonds in brown butter. I had had it at Rusterman’s, where they call it ris de veau amandine, and Fritz’s is always better. I know I haven’t got Wolfe’s ‘palate. I know it because he has told me.
After lunch you might have thought we were back to normal. Theodore brought down a batch of statistics on germination and performance, and I entered them on the file cards. Week in and week out, that routine, about two per cent of which-the few he sells-applies to income and the rest to outgo, takes, on an average, about a third of my time. Wolfe, after listening to my reports on my morning’s research, which contributed absolutely nothing, worked hard at comparing Fitzgerald’s Illiad with the three other translations he brought over from the shelf. That was risky because they were on a high shelf and he had to use the stool. On the dot at four o’clock he left for the plant rooms. You might have thought we hadn’t a care in the world. There hadn’t been a peep from the members of the family. Wolfe hadn’t even glanced at Herblock’s Special Report. The only flaw was that when I finished typing the letters my legs and lungs wanted to go for a walk, and Saul and Fred and Orrie didn’t have walkie-talkies.
At six o’clock the sound came of the elevator complaining as it started down, but it only lasted four seconds. He had stopped off for a look at the South Room, which he hadn’t seen since one-thirty Tuesday morning. It was a good ten minutes before it started again, so he gave the ruins more than a glance. When he came and crossed to his desk and got settled, he said my guess of fifteen hundred dollars was probably too low with the bloated prices of
everything from sugar to shingles, and I said I was glad to hear him having fun with words, tossing off an alliteration with two words that weren’t spelled the same. He said it had been casual, which was a lie, and started reading and signing the letters. He always reads them, not to catch errors because he knows there won’t be any, but to let me know that if I ever make one it will be spotted.
It was ten minutes to seven and I was sealing the envelopes when the phone rang and I got it.
“Nero Wolfe’s residence, Archie Goodwin speaking.”
Up to six o’clock it’s “office.”
After six, “residence.”
I don’t want people to think my nose is on the grindstone. Most offices close at five.
“May I speak to Mr. Wolfe, please? My name is Roman Vi-lar. V-I-L-A-R.”
I covered the mouthpiece and turned. “Fred has flushed one. Roman Vilar, euphemistic security. He asks permission to speak to Mr. Wolfe, please. Only he makes it Vi-lar.”
“Indeed.”
Wolfe reached for his receiver. I kept mine.
“Nero Wolfe speaking.”
This is Roman Vilar, Mr. Wolfe. You have never heard of me, but of course I have heard of you. But that isn’t correct-you have heard of me, or at least your man Goodwin has. Yesterday, from Benjamin Igoe.”
“Yes. Mr. Goodwin has told me.”
“Of course. And he told you what Mr. Igoe told him. Of course. And Mr. Igoe has told me what he told Goodwin. I have told others, and they are here with me now in my apartment. Mr. Igoe and four others. May I ask a question?”
“Yes. I may answer it.”
“Thank you. Have yon told the police or the District Attorney what Mr. Igoe told Goodwin?”
“No.”
“Thank you. Do you intend to? No, I withdraw that. I can’t expect you to tell me what you intend to do. We have been discussing the situation, and one of us was going to go and discuss it with you, but we decided we would all like to be present. Of course not now-it’s your dinnertime, or soon will be. Would nine o’clock be convenient?”